Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 22,
2005
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
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Marcos
The
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Hitchens
as Model Apostate
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Israel's
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February 22, 2005
Remapping the Middle East
The
Politics of Hariri's Assassination
By
NASEER H. ARURI
The tragic assassination of Lebanon's
former Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, in Beirut on Monday, February
14, 2005, reverberated across the region, as it evoked vivid
memories from Lebanon's 14-year civil war. In itself, the act
is a political earthquake, the fall- out from which will have
profound local, regional and international implications. Hariri
was not an ordinary Lebanese politician. Inside Lebanon he symbolized
a fragile economic recovery reflected in the economic and political
rebuilding of a shattered society. Moreover, he was a new breed
of Lebanese politician, one who would cast his net fairly wide
across a broad political spectrum.
Unlike the days of the civil
war, the realignment after Hariri's death now reflects a novel
political divide where the fault lines are no longer religious
but national. The opposition to the Lahoud/Karame pro-Syrian
government is no longer focused on Maronite centrality; today
the Maronite Patriarch Sfeir walks hand in hand with Druze leader,
Walid Jumblatt, and an undifferentiated slew of Sunni politicians.
Druze and Sunnis were of course pillars of the Lebanese Nationalist
Movement of the 70s and 80s, which allied itself with the Palestinians
against a Syrian/ Maronite thrust united in the need to thwart
the emergence of a Lebanese " communist Cuba" on Syria's
strategic periphery.
At the regional level, Hariri was a major player who enjoyed
a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, a working relationship
with Syria (despite his resignation over Syrian backing for a
renewal of Lahoud's presidency), and solid contacts with the
Palestinians. At the international level, few Arab politicians
have acquired his stature among the great power leaders, such
as the French President Chirac, Malaysian leader, Mahattir, and
even George Bush. To some Lebanese, he was a symbol of globalization,
reconstruction and philanthropy; to others, his company Solidere,
stood for corruption, a staggering debt, and even forcible eviction.
Nevertheless, among the majority of Lebanese, he is seen broadly
as a benefactor, and a nation-builder in the political and economic
sense.The liquidation of Hariri was thus an act directed against
the stability of Lebanon and the new political map that was shaped
by his 14 years in power as Prime Minister since 1990.
There is no shortage of potential
perpetrators, considering that numerous actors, including Syria,
Israel, the United States, Libya and Palestinian militias have
all tried their hands at political assassinations in Lebanon
through the use of bombing. Although the identity of the assassins
may never be known and indeed may prove less important than the
consequences, the important questions are, what the crime will
lead to in geo-political terms, and who the greatest beneficiaries
are? What is the likely impact of this heinous crime on the Lebanese
political landscape and the regional map? We might even add the
global dimension.
Despite the fact that most
fingers are pointed at Syria and the Government of Lebanon, Syria
has the most to lose by the revival of sectarian strife. Given
the Bush administration's pressure on Syria, and its declared
intent to effect regime change in various Middle Eastern countries,
Syria would be shooting itself in the foot by taking any action
that invites chaos in Lebanon.
Syria's presence in Lebanon has become totally unacceptable to
the US-President and Congress during the past four years. The
Syria Accountability Act of 2003 and Security Council resolution
1559 of October 2004 impose sanctions on Syria and require Syria's
exit from Lebanon. Thus, Syria has been behaving cautiously.
Syria's situation today is
not different from that of Iraq in 2002. Both were accused and/or
suspected of supporting terrorism, building weapons of mass destruction,
pursuing a policy of strategic deterrence vis-a-vis Israel, and
undermining the growing US hegemony in the region. Once the United
Nations, under pressure from the US ordered Syria to quit Lebanon,
the Iraq scenario came back alive. The only difference is that
1559 was more firm in its demands on Syria than were the resolutions
which preceded the unlawful US invasion of Iraq in April 2003.
Syria is requested to abandon its armed allies in Lebanon, to
accommodate the Sharon agenda of evicting Palestinian organizations,
even though they are mere press offices, and withdraw its 14000
troops( already reduced from 40000) inside its own borders. No
such expectations are made of Israel even though it sits on top
of the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 and has a nuclear capacity
without a shred of regional deterrence.
Simply put, Syria has been
under the gun since September 11 and all its overtures to curry
favor with Washington- be that of delivering suspected al-Qaeda
people and cooperating in various ways with the US endeavor in
Iraq-have failed to sway Bush's neo-conservatives from their
strategic goal of balkanizing the Arab world in pursuit of a
common US/Israeli agenda whose first phase has already been implemented
in Iraq. None of Syria's favors have deterred the ongoing extension
of the American empire in the Middle East.
There is an enormous contrast
between US policy regarding Syria's regional role in the mid-seventies
and the present. A sea change has occurred during the past three
decades. When Syrian forces entered Lebanon to support the right-wing
Maronite forces, and to act as arbiter between the warring sectarian
groups in 1976, there were blessings from Israel, Washington
and certain Arab capitals. King Hussein brokered the deal on
behalf of the strange bed fellows in the conviction that Syria's
Arab nationalist credentials would make it a more appropriate
"peace keeper" in that area than Israel. Other state
actors with a vested interest in regional stability would bestow
legitimacy on Syria's anomalous mission later on by obtaining
an Arab cover for its unwritten Israeli/American endorsed project
on behalf of a strategic equilibrium.
The US-Israeli sanction of
a Syrian role in Lebanon, however, was short-lived.
The grandiose ambitions of
Begin and Sharon in the Levant were spelled out in 1982, when
Israel invaded Lebanon in order to achieve three goals: 1) to
dislodged Syria's presence in Lebanon and reduce Syria to manageable
proportions. 2) to expel the PLO from Lebanon and thus pre-empt
a Palestinian state-in-waiting. 3) to alter the political map
of Lebanon in such a manner that Maronite hegemony would be assured
at the expense of Sunnis, Shi'a, Druze and the Palestinians.
Bashir Jumayyil, leader of the Phalanges was Israel's chosen
president/viceroy, but he was assassinated before taking the
oath of office.
When the Lebanese resistance
foiled Israel's plans for the Lebanese political map, and Syria
stayed put, US President Reagan sent the marines to replace the
Israelis who withdrew to South Lebanon, where they stayed until
ejected by Hizbollah in May, 2000. Neither Israel nor the United
States had forgotten the humiliation of abrupt withdrawal-The
Americans after the disastrous bombing of the US Marine Barracks
in 1983; the Israelis after their inability to stand firm in
the face of Hizbollah's sophisticated resistance. Syria's presence
in Lebanon was reaffirmed by the Arab league, and at Taif, where
the agreement became a symbol of that presence.
The equation arranged by Washington
for Syria and Lebanon in 1976 has been withering away since the
1980s. Hafez Assad's strategic power play during the 1991 Iraq
war may have kept it on resuscitation, but the raison d'etre
is no longer there. Hafez Assad is no longer on the scene, and
Washington has no more need for Syrian cooperation in the containment
of Saddam Hussein, who languishes in a US jail in Iraq.
Moreover, with US Middle East
policy now consigned to the likes of David Wurmser, Edward Feit,
Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams and other Sharon
operatives in the think tanks, media and the administration,
Syria's regional role will not be seen in the same context employed
by Bush I and Baker. It should be recalled that David Wurmser
helped draft a document entitled "Ending Syria's Occupation
of Lebanon: the US Role?" in 2000, which called for a confrontation
with Syria, which it accused of developing "weapons of mass
destruction. According to Charles Glass ("Bashar Assad:
The Syrian Sphinx," Independent, February 19, 2005)
"Washington's neoconservatives were sharpening their knives
for Syria long before they assumed office courtesy of George
Bush. Many of them have already been advisers to Binyamin Netanyahu
during his brief tenure as prime minister of Israel." Glass
adds: "the American advisers, including Douglas Feith and
Richard Perle, counseled Israel in 1996 that it can shape its
strategic environment... by weakening, containing and even rolling
back Syria,.an effort that can focus on removing Saddam Hussein
from power in Iraq an important Israeli strategic objective
in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
These operative's push for
an invasion of Iraq in 2002/03 is now being renewed against Syria
and Iran, while a new formula for a Lebanon minus Hizbullah is
being geared up. Such a formula would enable Israel to achieve
two of the strategic goals of its 1982 invasion, which had been
foiled by the Lebanese resistance. That is why Lebanon without
Syrian troops and impotent Hizbullah is now a US and Israeli
declared objective. A greatly weakened Syria is crucial as long
as both Israel and the US are determined to see a nuclear-free
Iran. We are a great distance away from Bush and Baker's "Dual
Containment" of Iran and Iraq. Washington's various operatives
make no secret about the need to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Bush himself pledged to back Israel in the event it
launched an aerial strike against Iran. Thus a liquidation of
Hizbullah is seen as a necessary step for subduing Iran as well
as Syria.
Hariri's death, no matter who
arranged it, is the perfect opportunity to implement the Israeli/US
strategy, and revisit Israel's frustrated plans of 1982. What
better circumstances could enable Israel to reap the benefits
of Hariri's murder? Unlike 1982, Maronites, Druze, and Sunnis
are all lined up against Syria, and once Syria is weakened, they
would line up against Hizbullah too.
Not only would this scenario
serve the interests of Israel, by helping it achieve unfulfilled
aspirations, but it also paves the way for an extension of the
American empire without the kind of European opposition encountered
in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It would be a contiguous American
empire stretching between the oil of the Caspian Sea and the
bountiful wells of Saudi Arabia.
Thus the tragic death of Rafiq Hariri is inextricably linked
to the ongoing remapping which lies at the crossroads after the
war in Afghanistan, followed by Sharon's war on the Palestinians,
and the invasion of Iraq. It was like fuel poured on the fire
of these conflicts conveniently classified as wars against terror.
Should the grand strategy succeed
in the way conceived by the Washington neo-conservatives and
Tel Aviv's Likudists, the old pillars, which kept a semblance
of an Arab world going, will have been dealt a severe blow. The
formulae affecting Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan
and the Gulf will have been shattered.
The only salvation for an Arab
world on its way to becoming a new Middle East, is to recalculate
the real cost of dependency, fragmentation, misuse of strategic
resources, and the tenacious clinging to autocracy as they face
an onslaught which reminds us of 1258. That, however, is an entirely
separate subject, which requires its own examination.
Naseer Aruri is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus)
at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His latest book
is Dishonest
Broker: the US Roles in Israel and Palestine, Cambridge,
MA: South End Press, 2003
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